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Dilagha is worried about his future and his missing family (Helen Taylor)

Imagine a boy of 13. Not a
small child, but certainly nowhere near an adult. He could be your son or your
brother. Now imagine that the unthinkable happens. His father is murdered. The
attackers say they will come back for him. Someone in the family, an uncle
maybe, finds the money to spirit the boy away. A journey of unfathomable
hardship and danger follows. After four months he tumbles out of a lorry into
England. But he doesn’t know it’s England. He finds himself in front of
officials and tries to tell his story.

“Social Services said to me,
‘Why did you come here?’ I said: I wish this had not happened to me, not
happened to my family… I shouldn’t be here, I shouldn’t be crying in front of
you. I shouldn’t be depressed, stressed about my family, about the situation… I
didn’t even know I was going to come here… Why did I cross these mountains? Why
did I cross lots of countries to come here? Because I didn’t want people to
kill me. I came for asylum, to save my life here, to enjoy my life here, to
make some friends.”

This is Dilagha’s story. We
meet at the office of Migrant Welcome, a small organisation in south east London
helping young asylum seekers. Dilagha’s father, a Taliban commander, was shot
dead at their home in Afghanistan by men working for the government. The
government and the Taliban then came for Dilagha. His family paid an agent and
he fled the country, with no idea where he was going. “I remember walking in
the mountain for three and a half days. I didn’t eat any food, any drink,” he tells
me. “And I was on the axle under a lorry. I was there for 40 hours.” Sometimes
he was travelling with 30 people from different countries, sometimes 200, at
times alone with an agent.

Dilagha was given
Discretionary Leave to Remain when he arrived in the UK and placed in foster
care. Most unaccompanied minors – a curious term which does nothing to convey
the vulnerability and desperation of young people seeking asylum alone – are
given permission to stay for three years or until they reach 17 ½, whichever is the shortest. In granting this concession, the UK is
adhering to international law, which prohibits the return of children unless
there are adequate reception facilities in their country of origin.

Dilagha is now a quiet and reserved
19 year old living in a shared house. He has a passion for cricket and thinks
he might like to work for the government or join the police. But his Leave to
Remain expired two years ago and he has been without status ever since. He has
no idea when his case will be heard and what the outcome will be. He is
constantly fearful.

“If they send me back, there
is no point. I know they are going to kill me. Government or Taliban. And where
can I go there? Where am I going to find my family?” Dilagha has had no contact
with his family since he left. The Red Cross has also searched for them and found
nobody. He worries about them all the time. “Maybe they move to a different
country. Or maybe the government or Taliban already threatened them. Or maybe
they killed them.”

Dilagha’s precarious
situation in the UK was made worse because his age was disputed by the
authorities. Social workers checked the size of his feet for clues. Doctors
tutted when he grew much bigger during his first year in the country. His
ability to recall the details of his terrible journey made them doubt him.
“They say: Because you still remember your story, you are 16. I say: I still
remember my story because it happened to me. This is my reality.”

The Home Office officially raised
his age by two years, only to later accept that he had indeed been 14 when he arrived.
In the meantime Dilagha missed out on school, denied his right to education under British and international law. His halting English was learned in college ESOL
classes, rather than alongside English-speaking children at school.

Like Dilagha, Bilal also arrived
in the UK alone at 13. His father, a businessman dealing with US companies, was
kidnapped by the Taliban who then threatened to kidnap Bilal. Bilal looks and
sounds like a London teenager, with his baseball cap and baggy jeans. He and
his friends go bowling and to the cinema, “just like we are family”, he tells
me.

Bilal had Discretionary Leave
to Remain from the time he arrived until he was 16. Then he applied for asylum
and heard nothing for two years, when his claim was refused. “I think they
don’t believe me," he says, “I’ve even got proof and everything.”

He sees himself as “more
English” now and can’t imagine returning to Afghanistan. “I kind of grew up in
this country,” he tells me. “I’ve been in school, I’ve got friends here. I
haven’t got no-one back in my country now. I don’t even know where my family
is.” He has the words ‘Family First’ tattooed on his hands – a form of
self-expression, he points out, forbidden in Afghanistan. “It’s not allowed
there. They would chop hands and that.”

His anxiety is
understandable. A recent report for the UNHCR, on the predicament of young Afghan asylum seekers in the UK, noted
that some were being forcibly returned to a situation of danger, and most would
face difficulties with cultural reintegration, mental health issues and a lack
of employment if they went back to the country.

After he left his country Bilal
kept up contact with his family. Then, three years ago, he got a phone call
from a social worker to tell him that his younger brother had arrived in the UK
with severe burns. The family house in Afghanistan had been set alight and his
family disappeared. He doesn’t know what happened to them and is too scared to
probe his brother for details. “He’s only 13 and he’s already got nightmares,” Bilal
explains. “He keeps changing foster care because no-one can look after him.”
His brother’s presence in the country does not appear to have been considered
during Bilal’s asylum claim.

Bilal lives in fear of being
returned to Afghanistan. I ask him what he wants people to know about his
situation. He answers quietly, “If I was safe there, I wouldn’t be here. If my
family was there, I wouldn’t be here.” He suddenly seems much younger: “I see
people walking around with their mum and dad and I can’t even talk to my
family. It hurts so much but people don’t understand.”

Ghulam fears he will be killed if returned to Afghanistan (Helen Taylor)Ghulam is another Afghani
teenager who fears removal from the UK. A member of the persecuted Hazara
minority, he fled when his father was forced to join the Taliban and a rocket
was fired at their house. His journey to the UK took a staggering seven months.
Like the others, he was given three and a half years Leave to Remain and placed
in foster care.

Three months before turning
18 he submitted his claim for asylum, but a year later was refused. His appeal
has been rejected. Ghulam is devastated: “I feel very emotional. I feel upset.
I’ve been living here nearly five years. I feel I’m a part of this community. I
grew up here in London.”

Like the other young men,
Ghulam is poised between two possible futures. One in which he sees himself
going to university and becoming an engineer, working to “find a good job and a
good life”. The other, return to a country that has become unfamiliar and
remains dangerous. “If I go back to Afghanistan they will kill me,” he says. He
has had no contact with his family since he left and the Red Cross have been
unable to find them.

While he waits for the Home
Office’s next move, Ghulam continues to go to college and continues to worry. “Sometimes
my friends they’re playing football and they don’t care about anything. And I
look at myself, the situation I am in and I feel like a stranger. Sometimes I
tell my story to my friends and they are shocked. They say, how can you manage
these things?”

No amount of political
rhetoric about ‘floodgates’ and ‘bogus asylum seekers’ can detract from the reality
that these were children who were prepared to walk across mountains and hide
under lorries, to leave their families behind, so that they would be safe.

For Dilagha, that safety
still hangs in the balance: “If the Home Office refuse and say I have to go
back, that is going to be my last day in the world. If the Home Office give me
status, I’m just going to think I’m born again.”